Cruze rollout a success

Holden execs are quietly celebrating. Not just the unveiling of the marque's new hi-tech six-cylinder engines, but the impact of the marque's new four-cylinder small car the Cruze.

In its first full month on sale the sedan-only Cruze registered 1982 units according to industry statisticians, VFACTS. This compares to 3891 for the industry leading Corolla and 2785 for the Mazda3, both of which offer sedan and hatch variants.

Holden Executive Director Sales, Marketing and Aftersales, and CEO elect, Alan Batey said Holden was "very, very happy" with the Cruze's local rollout.

"It's early days but we're very, very happy. We probably have gone off much faster [than expected]," Batey told the Carsales Network.

"Normally in Australia cars don't normally go off immediately. Some places, like some places in Europe, you launch a new car and just goes off and then it takes a period to settle down. In Australia, it normally builds up quite slowly... This thing [Cruze] has just gone off! Every dealer's currently screaming and emailing me, saying we need more cars," Batey enthused.

According to Batey, the model mix of Cruze has been split almost 50:50 between base model (CD) and the premium version, the CDX. He stated that the CD-only turbodiesel version was in strong demand and confirmed Holden would add an oiler variant to the top-line offer.

"I think ourselves and Hyundai are the only ones offering an amazing value package on a small diesel and some people obviously see the diesel [Cruze] as the pick of the bunch," Batey explained.

"The [overall] mix is about 50:50 [entry level versus top variant]. CDX diesel -- there's a lot of demand as well, so we're working to get that [new variant] released to the market as quickly as we can," Batey said.

"We're sitting on a huge order bank. Obviously a good place to be..."

But the Lion isn't getting too carried away. When quizzed on when Holden would add a hi-tech direct-injected four to the mix [a direct-injected turbo 1.4 is rumoured to be finding its way under the bonnet], Batey counselled caution.

"Cruze is the massive opportunity for us. That [small cars] is the biggest segment of the market and if you really look at it, for the cars that do okay, they can do 1000 -- maybe 1500 units per month... Cars that do really well [in the small car segment], it's 4000 [units per month].

"There's a massive [sales volume] bandwidth and so it's a great opportunity for us. So all our current efforts are around establishing and positioning that car and then maximising the volume opportunity and then next year it'll be localised.

"The platform gives you the ability from the toolkit to take all of that [DI engines, etc] and some. What we're making sure we do is listen to our customer. Value in this segment is huge --you've got to be able to tick the other boxes, but value is very important. We're making sure we don't get carried away by being like a child in a toy shop and then ending up engineering and designing cost into our car," Batey explained.

"The [small car] customer effectively says "My [spending] bandwidth is up to $26-27,000", so we've got to be somewhat cautious, but all the opportunities are there.

"It's a case of making sure we select the right ones [powertrains]. We're going through that process now -- making sure we can supply more than the customer expects but being able to do so commercially," Batey opined.

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